The heart of a daughter

The three daughters didn’t see it coming, nor did the entire family.

But when it happened, their whole lives changed forever.

When Ann Dobbie died on Christmas Day, 1999, of ovarian cancer,

Kim Beaudette, Cathy Greinke and Lori Hunter vowed that this

shouldn’t happen to other families, if possible.

And in January 2000, the Queen of Hearts Foundation was born, the

brainchild of the three sisters, all daughters of Ann Dobbie.

The objective of the foundation is to support a current research

project directly focused on factors thought to be associated with the

early detection of ovarian cancer.

“At the time, it was very emotional,” Beaudette said Saturday at

Palisades Tennis Club, one of the sites of the foundation’s third

annual charity tennis tournament, which began Friday.

“Everybody in our family was really, really close. [Dobbie] was

kind of the rock of our family. I think what was so surprising was we

were sort of unprepared.”

After the death of their mother, Beaudette, Greinke and Hunter

started the nonprofit organization, based in Newport Beach. Through

fundraisers, such as this tennis tournament, the foundation has

raised more than $475,000 to date, all directed toward research of

the cancer that killed their mother.

In 2003, the Queen of Hearts formed a partnership with the UCI

Medical Center/Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center to support

ovarian cancer research.

This weekend and next, the tennis tournament is taking place at

Newport Beach Tennis Club and Palisades.

About $20,000 will be raised in the tournament, said Beaudette,

49, who lives in Newport Beach.

Saturday, I had the pleasure of playing in a portion of the

tournament at Palisades with Beaudette. We had a warm-up clinic and

lesson first with Palisades professional instructor Billy McQuaid,

followed by an actual round of tennis.

December 25 of this year will mark six years since the three

sisters, the founders, experienced the tragic death of the mother at

age 65.

“It was so surprising because she was never sick,” Beaudette said.

“We were ultimately not prepared for it.”

Of course, no family is. But the three daughters did something

about it, and to this day, their work is not going unnoticed.

For 2001 and 2002, the foundation donated their proceeds to a

two-year collaborative research project with Northwestern University

and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

And there have been numerous more partnerships and research

projects the foundation has donated its money to, all with the

ultimate goal of breakthroughs in ovarian cancer research.

“Part of ovarian cancer is it’s caught late in most cases,”

Beaudette said. “And we thought if we could develop a device for a

program to catch it earlier, then there would be a higher survival

rate. We felt that if our mom had had that opportunity for an

early-detection test, they would have caught hers earlier.”

Currently, Greinke, 51, and Hunter, 43, both live in Tustin, while

Beaudette resides in Newport.

For more information on the Queen of Hearts Foundation, visit

their website, www.qohfoundation.org.

The Queen of Hearts tournament continues Oct. 14-15.